1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to the field of digital color image processing and especially to white balancing of a digital image.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The human eye can adjust to varying illumination conditions. Digital images should undergo a compensation process that is known as white balancing in order to adjust digital images to varying illumination conditions. This process is referred to as white balancing because its goal is to represent white objects as white, despite the illumination conditions.
Some prior art white balancing methods are highly complex and require computational resources that are available only in costly hardware, other prior art methods process the whole digital image and are time consuming. Various prior art methods and systems for white balancing are described in the following patents and patent applications, all being incorporated herein by reference: U.S. Pat. No. 7,151,563 of Masayu, U.S. Pat. No. 6,873,727 of Lopez et al., U.S. Pat. No. 7,006,135 of Ishimaru et al., and U.S. Pat. No. 6,839,088 of Dicarlo et al.
Different prior art methods are suited for different scenarios. One method can provide adequate results when applied on a certain image but is not able to provide adequate results when applied on another image.
There is a growing need to provide a robust and reliable white balancing method, device, and computer program product.